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Female Speaker: Why losing friends and infuriating people may actually help you succeed at work.

Don: That story, of course, is coming up. For those have heard or maybe even read the book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” but there’s a new book out called “How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People.” Jonar Nader wrote the book. He joins us this morning live to talk about it. Good morning, Jonar. Thank you for joining us.

Jonar Nader: Hi, Don. Thanks for having me.

Don: Hey, the title of the book, of course, sounds like it would be a direct opposition to Dale Carnegie’s book that most of us are familiar with. But it’s really not the case as I’ve thumbed through it. In a nutshell, what is it really all about?

Jonar Nader: Well, it’s about following your heart and doing what has to be done. The philosophies of old have done a great job. And Dale Carnegie did a great job. But today we have to learn opposites. We were taught things like conflict avoidance. We also need to understand when do I actually stand up and count. We were taught things like focus, focus, focus, but now we also need to do opposites simultaneously. Like we need to be aware while focused simultaneously. We need to understand fear and courage simultaneously. We need to know when to be patient – because patience is a virtue….

Don: Right.

Jonar Nader: …but at the same time impatience is also wonderful.

Don: Let’s talk about some of the chapters. Chapter 9: Forget about Teamwork.

Jonar Nader: Yeah.

Don: It doesn’t – it doesn’t sound really good, but explain what that means.

Jonar Nader: Look, you know, teamwork is something that’s so important, but what do people think? They think teamwork is about getting people together who can – who are happy together and who can play golf together. But, no, teamwork is not about getting people together; it’s about getting the right people together. So, we shouldn’t pretend that just by being happy that somehow we’re going to, well, get on. No. You need to construct teams that work in the same way you construct ingredients…

Don: Move one more chapter ahead. Chapter 10: It’s Not What You Give, But What You Take.

Jonar Nader: Yeah? Well, you know, what do our bosses say? They say, “I hereby empower you.” You cannot say to someone, “You are no longer scared of spiders,” but what you can do is say, “I’ll take away the bureaucracy, the red tape, the stupidity.” By taking away the stupidity, now people can become self-empowered.

Don: We’re running out of time. I did want to say that I did enjoy reading some of it, especially the Balcony of Life, which is in Chapter 1. We’ll leave people hanging there so they might want to pick up the book. Thank you very much for joining us this morning…

Jonar Nader: Yeah, thank you.

Don: …and talking about your book. Interesting title, that is for sure.

Jonar Nader: Thanks, Don.

Don: Thank you Mr. Nader.

Female Speaker: So, in light of that, the truth can come out about us and whether we really like one another or not.

Don: Yeah. It’s definitely a – I love the title, you know, and the book, yeah.

Female Speaker: “How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People.” Alexandra does that every day.

Don: When she….

Female Speaker: You know.

Don: … has a bad forecast, yeah.

Female Speaker: That’s why, you know, I’m totally conflict avoidant and, Kairley, you’re the opposite, so this book is really good for you.

Kairley: It’s true.

Female Speaker: You go right in for the kill.

Kairley: I know, it’s my job.

Female Speaker: And you’re good at it. All right, well, good morning, everyone.

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Female: Our next guest is an Australian author who seems to be taking his own literary advice with strangely successful results. Jonar Nader is the man behind the bestselling book, How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. And he’s recently infuriated publishers in the US, winning a legal challenge that would have forced his book off the shelves. Jonar is now back in Australia with big plans for the future and he joins us in the studio.

Jonar, good morning.

Jonar Nader: Hi, Tracey.

Female: Did you exactly win that legal – we should explain this legal challenge. This was the estate, the family of Dale Carnegie whose original book title, How To Win Friends and Influence People, you kind of borrowed from for your book. And that …

Jonar Nader: I hardly did borrow anything but they took exceptions.

Female: You didn’t.

Jonar Nader: They were jealous and they said that I was unfair competition which was the most flattering thing any big humungous publisher can say to me. So, they said, withdraw off the market and I engaged lawyers both here and in the US and we did our homework and realized they actually have nothing to stand on. They eventually I think found that out for themselves but the ball is still in their court. But under great threats, I still went to the US to launch the book.

Female: Okay. So, if in fact, they decide to revive legal action and if you lose, do you have to hand over every cent you’ve made out of this book potentially?

Jonar Nader: Oh well, yes sure. But if they lose, I’ll probably be earning me several million dollars too for the aggravation because then they’re just causing trouble. And our letter back to them said, this is nothing but frivolous and that’s the best word we could find in our legal terms.

Female: Alright. So, the book is doing okay then.

Jonar Nader: Well, brilliantly well and it’s doing okay not because of anything to do with Carnegie. Its doing okay because it stands well on its own and people love actually what it’s saying in this modern world.

Female: Alright. You’re going to do a new series of books, How to Infuriate Among Other People, Lawyers, Teachers, Fat People, and Women. Why do you want to do that exactly?

Jonar Nader: Well, I think the industry desperately needs good old-fashioned publishing values, which says, when you publish a book …

Female: How to really annoy people.

Jonar Nader: No, we’ve got to get the facts up similar with – similarly with lawyers. You know, if you ever dealt with a lawyer, you know how expensive it is and I have a lawyer writing a book called How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Lawyers or words to that effect, How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Teachers. Young people …

Female: Yes, how – how – why?

Jonar Nader: Why?

Female: How and why.

Jonar Nader: Well, let’s take young people and How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Teachers. I left school at 14 and I still mix with young people. They are tormented. They think HSC is the be all and end all. They’re committing suicide. They’re just depressed and then they go back to university and they say, ‘Oh, I’ll do a degree.’ And then they finished the degree and they’ll go and do an MBA. And I go, ‘What for?’ ‘Oh well, I don’t know.’ And the prime of their life is gone and they really still don’t understand what life is about.

So, there is a need out there for people to understand the truths and when you actually expose the truths that infuriates lot of people because there are two sides of the fence.

Female: So, are you going to tell young people not to bother with tertiary education? Is that basically what you’re saying?

Jonar Nader: Well, I’m going to say, follow your heart first and do what you know has to be done and don’t just go to school because, ‘Oh well, that’s the next thing to do. Oh well, I’m 18. I think I’ll go to uni.’ I mean whatever for? If you say I love this subject and I want to know more about it, sure go to uni but don’t go there because it’s automatic because the system says so because at the end of it, you come out, you’re 30 something at the prime of your life and you’re still a nobody. I think life can be enjoyed better than that.

Female: Okay. So basically, your publisher now.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: And a professional stirrer of the possum.

Jonar Nader: No, I’m not a professional stirrer. I’m actually saying, ‘Excuse me people, there’s a life to be lived, there’s truth to be known. Let’s do it in this very fast-paced world.’ How do young people discern between right and wrong these days? How can they – unless we teach them to be critical.

Female: Okay. We’ll watch for those books.

Jonar Nader: Thanks.

Female: Thanks, Jonar.

Male: And then there will be How to Lose Friends and Infuriate TV Execs. Jonar Nader, and we’ve got more of Today after this break.

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Female: Give the man a microphone and he will give you his opinion. Jonar C. Nader among other things, he is a lecturer, public speaker, broadcaster and author. Based in Sydney, he is in Hamilton on the series of lectures around the country.

Jonar Nader: On this occasion I’m looking at the future. So, I’m being a futurist and sometimes I’m a business executive who helps people understand technology and society. Sometimes I talk to governments and help them understand about fraud and the next major impacts of technology and fraud. And I also have a book called How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People and that book is about leadership and I am involved very heavily in training people about what leadership means, how it applies to personal development and also business and corporate development.

Female: It’s that book a guide to personal achievement, management and leadership that has ironically infuriated a US company that was built on the back of the popular 1930s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Lawyers for Dale Carnegie & Associates sent Nader a cease and desist letter saying they object to the use of the book title. The self-published Lebanese author has been forced to practice what he preaches.

Jonar Nader: Where it said is that they’ve made all sorts of threats. They’ve said that they will take this until the end and I have said I’ll take this until the end and let’s see. Interestingly, this is a test of character because my readers are now saying, ‘Well Jonar, you tell us to stand up for our rights, what are you going to do about it?’ And sure enough, I’ve done lots about it.

Female: Nader says he’ll fight the empire with all he’s got. Carlie Kirkwood, Prime Local News.

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Tracy: Well, fledgling author, Jonar Nader, is feeling the heat of international law on his shoulders after upsetting publishing giant Simon & Schuster. His book, How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People has got up the nose of the family of motivational guru, Dale Carnegie, who penned the bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People. Lawyers for the Carnegie stipulate Nader is playing off the title of Carnegie’s book and they want it pulp before it goes on sale in the United States.

Well, Jonar Nader joins us now. Jonar, good morning.

Jonar Nader: Hello, Taylor – Tracy.

Tracy: What’s your book about?

Jonar Nader: It’s about doing what you believe is right, doing what has to be done. It’s about leadership, management, and personal achievement. And so unfortunately, in this day and age, we move too quickly to play games and I say, if you follow your heart, do what you have to do even if you have to lose friends and infuriate people. So actually, the book, it has nothing to do with Carnegie’s book. It’s about the modern world.

Tracy: So, it’s an – it’s an inspirational self-help book then? Is it?

Jonar Nader: It – well, that’s one step of it. The next step is actually, it gives you guidance about how to survive the modern age, the digital age, the network 12 which is a whole new world we need to learn about. It’s about teamwork and all the things that people keep hearing about except it gives you my perspective on it which I believe is totally opposite to what we’ve been taught.

Tracy: Okay. Digital and modern age aside, inspiration self-help book, inspirational self-help book written by Dale Carnegie, very similar sort of concept, aren’t they?

Jonar Nader: Well, there are a million and one books on that kind of subject. I believe mine is different and it’s doing a good job out there.

Tracy: But one’s called How to Win Friends and Influence People and the other is called How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. You’ve clearly played on Carnegie’s title, haven’t you?

Jonar Nader: Not on purpose. I was actually in a meeting once and someone accused of – he said, ‘Jonar, you don’t know how to win friends and influence people, do you?’ And I exclaimed, ‘No.’ But it shows things like I know how to lose friends and infuriate people and that was the inspiration. It was having to put up with that nonsense in the boardroom and I thought, it’s about time we actually spoke up from this wishy washy nonsense. There’s no time for it.

Tracy: Did you know about the title of Carnegie’s book?

Jonar Nader: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. But what gives them the right to an opposites. You know, if you write a book called How to Lose Weight and I’ll write a book called How to Put on Weight, all of a sudden, doing the opposite of – I’m speaking the opposite. How can they stop me? On the other hand though, they have money and they’re trying but I’m fighting it.

Tracy: Did you not expect them to bite you?

Jonar Nader: No, because I know that the book has absolutely nothing to do with it. It doesn’t mention it at all. It has no similarity in structure nor content. It is a modern book for the modern age. It has a good clever title because the title actually reflects the book itself. The book is about losing friends and infuriating people if that’s what you have to do.

Tracy: You self-published, have you got the money to fight a big publisher in the United States?

Jonar Nader: No, no, I don’t but I’ve got the energy and I’ve got the motivation and I will do everything I can until my last cents. Of course, sometimes law is about money and not about justice but I’ll give it my best shot.

Tracy: Alright. We’ll wait and see how it turns out.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Tracy: Thanks for your time.

Jonar Nader: Thank you.

Male: Jonar Nader and news weather is next here on the Today program.

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Female: So, what are your credentials in life?

Jonar Nader: Well, I don’t like the term credentials because what you’re saying to me is what’s your brand because if I said to you, I’m an Oxford boy that means, you know, I’m lardie da and my parents are rich. And if I said to you, I’m a Scotts boy or a Harvard boy, what does that mean? It means it’s a brand, right? And then people say, what country are you from? Some countries have brands. Isn’t it funny that the US of A if it were a brand that could be trademark, it would sit next to Dunhill and Cartier. It has this image but when you delve deep down and scratch the surface, what is it? Yes, the US is a fine country but it’s got its own pretty messy problems.

Female: Yes.

Jonar Nader: But it projects a beautiful image. Now – so therefore, when people ask me, what’s your business card, who do you report to, what company do you work for, where do you …

Female: Where do you come from sort of thing?

Jonar Nader: Yes. They’re trying to pigeon-hole me. And that’s why you’ll find on my business card, it actually says post-tentative virtual surrealist.

Female: Now, what is a post-tentative virtual surrealist? Did you make that up or what?

Jonar Nader: Yes, because again, I’ve always been either the youngest or the oldest or something. So, in my corporate life, I was always the youngest manger. So, I have a team of people twice my age, three times my age that would be reporting to me. I’ll be the Senior Manager but I never used to boost about it. So, we’re going to a meeting, everyone would be of equal standing, we’d all do a great job, and I was just humble and sit in the background. And they’d ignore me because I was a genius. So, they thought, meaning they’re outsiders.

Female: Yes.

Jonar Nader: My team knew that I was the leader but I let them have the power. And so, wherever I went, people would want to know what title have you got, who do you report? And I thought, what do you want to know that for? So they can abuse me, they can see if I’m useful to them? And if I don’t have a good title, they’ll just move on and have a nibbly with somebody else. So one day, this lady insisted. She said, ‘But what are you? Are you a clerk, a manager, a director, what are you?’ I said, ‘I’m a post-tentative virtual surrealist.’ And she said, ‘Oh, that’s really interesting.’

Female: Yes .

Jonar Nader: She was so stupid like, you know, these abusers who go around networking. And that title stuck and we’ve made a lot of fun with it but I use it now.

Female:

Jonar Nader: I use it now to sort of say, ‘Stop. I don’t have a title. I’m a nobody. I’m not a dentist. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a Harvard. I’m not an Oxford. I am me. You take it or leave it.’ And furthermore, what I know is based on what I have gone in search of and what the blessings have come my way to learn. I didn’t sit in a lecture theater to be told about the facts of life. I went out and felt them. And now, people said to me, ‘Gee, you’re so lucky and whatever.’ What do you mean lucky? You know, I left school at 14 and had terrible, terrible times growing up. So, I made my own success and I made my own life and I’m still learning. And everyday I learn. You can see me in libraries until midnight. You will catch me researching things like – and that’s life. What do I need doing an MBA for or PhD to impress whom? So, this …

Female: Because not only were you high up in the corporate world, you’ve also not only written this book but you’re quite interested for precise writings for dictionary, Butterworths legal dictionary as well, Formula One racing magazines. I mean, you’ve done it all in the writing world, haven’t you?

Jonar Nader: I’ve done all sorts of writing, yes. And I’ve interviewed the most famous to the most humble and the most outcast. Writing was an interesting thing for me because English is my third language and when I got to Australia at a very young age, I couldn’t speak English. I didn’t know how to go around the place. I didn’t play cricket. I didn’t eat Vegemite like they all used to do in Australia.

Female: Or skip cornflakes.

Jonar Nader: Nothing. And I was a real outsider. And there wasn’t that much compassion in the classroom from the teachers down. And so, I was forced to learn English the hard way. In so doing, I fell in love with language because now I understood English, a bit of French, I understood Arabic, and I realized that in fact, the brain works in a very strange way because the way you think in Italian is not the way an English person thinks. It’s really weird. And so, I started writing because I love words. I wrote for fashion magazines, art magazines, architecture magazines, became editor of those magazines, and really enjoyed it.

Now, writing was always a hobby. And to this day, I’m an author but I don’t really think I’m an author. I’m an educator. I’m out there to make change, to do things, to pass on my experiences. So, I didn’t write the book to make money. And as you know, most authors can’t make money and you know, not unless you’re selling in the millions. And that’s pretty tough for us Aussies and New Zealanders, you know, we’re not exactly in the millions stakes. And you know, a lot of hype to sell a few million books, but I’m going to the US on the 23rd of June anyway.

Female: Now, the thing is with this book, I mean it’s – I would mention briefly the Carnegie, incredibly I think the one thing and it’s that what a lot of people have never heard of you is the title, How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. And a lot of people and their all thoughts have been, I mean, ‘What’s – what’s this guy on?’

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: Losing friends, I mean why did you come up with this title?

Jonar Nader: Oh well, several ways. First by the way, it is a frivolous title but that’s the attraction. In the world of marketing, you have to, you know, standout. But actually, I didn’t engineer that title. As you know, there’s a famous book called How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Female: Now, are you sort of doing a back stab at that?

Jonar Nader: No, you know, what had happened is incorporate life, I used to have bosses who’d come around with a stack of books and they’d throw the books down and say, ‘I want you to work on this.’ The next month, they come with another book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or Service, America, or The One Minute Manager. And I, ‘Look, you know, we’re schizophrenics. Which do you want us? You know, you keep finding.’ They come and say, ‘Oh, find the way.’ You can’t find the way in a book, you know, like that. And he says, “Try the things at this.’ And people used to, when we had the How to Win Friends and Influence People month, he’d – we had a meeting and during that meeting, someone was so furious with me. They were angry because I wouldn’t go their way. I wouldn’t sign the program they wanted me to sign off on. And I thought, what’s the point of employing me as a Marketing Director, giving me responsibility on millions of dollars if I can’t make the decision? If you want to make the decision then why do you employed me?

Female: Exactly.

Jonar Nader: What basis of expertise you’re bringing to the table? So, this manager said to me in fury, ‘Jonar, you sure know how to win friends and influence people.’ And I exclaimed in anger, ‘No, but it sure seemed like I know how to lose friends and infuriate people.’ Because everybody in the boardroom was absolutely furious that I wouldn’t go their way. And I thought, well …

Female: And the title was born.

Jonar Nader: The title was born and then I realized there and then as I’d known all my life in the school bus, in the school ground that if you stick to your guns, if you follow your heart, I mean, I never smoke and the flak I used to get at school for not going around and smoking or popping tablets or drinking. I mean, kids used to bring little Jim Beam bottles into their pockets and when the teacher wasn’t looking and everyone thought that was cute. The weirdest thing is I left school at 14, 10 years later there was a school reunion, pure chance I knew about. I went to this school reunion and the same kids who used to pull that bottles like these had come with two bottles in their hands, a balanced diet.

And I – it clicked and I thought, what seemed harmless… And these guys have PhDs and they were studying medicine but they were now brickie’s labourours, unemployed, and bums. And I resisted and I paid the price for resisting. I was teased every step of the way. I didn’t get a tattoo when they got a tattoo. I didn’t do my earring when they got the earring. I didn’t – they used to – you know, all these rituals and we used to – we thought that people in the highlands are barbaric, you know, all these barbaric things but the rituals that go on everyday in school, in society, at work, the way people carry on, if you want to resist that, you’re going to have to lose friends and infuriate people by accident not by choice.

So, if you want to – live true to yourself, be prepared to lose friends. I don’t say be rude. I don’t say be, you know, bombastic about it. But if you can’t stand firm – people are carrying on about our Prime Minister in Australia as to how they’re saying, why isn’t he apologizing for the aborigines, et cetera. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter for this discussion. But what matters is this guy has been consistent in his approach ever since he became Prime Minister and everyday, they hound him. You know, they talked about sexual harassment going down and going darling, no means no. The guy has said no and they keep harassing him to change his mind. The PM has a firm mind. Like it or not, don’t vote for him.

Female: Yes.

Jonar Nader: But somehow they think that the more you nag, the more someone is going to change their mind. But the more you embarrass them on the front page, that’s what I called character. That’s what I called firmness. That is a brand. A brand is something that is immovable and unshakeable. And so, should the personality be. If I know you, you should be who you are. Of course, you grow and develop for the better, please. Not this wishy washy being. Oh, will you marry me? Yes. Forever? Yes. And then next year, I want a divorce. But you said you’d never leave me. Oh, that’s different.

Female: That – that was – that was last year.

Jonar Nader: Yes. Well then, hang on. I speak English and you said you will never leave me. What do you mean? Never until 12 months? Speak English or don’t speak at all.

Female:

Jonar Nader: And so, don’t – you know, don’t be so flippant with – with words because words become thoughts and thoughts are who you are. And we are – say, we are what we think you know. So, what are you thinking? What are you saying? And that’s why I deconstruct a lot of notions. People talk about teamwork. I say, there’s no such thing as teamwork. People talk about empowerment. I say, no one can empower you and I explain why. They talk about motivation. I say, there is no such thing as motivation. You have to understand these things. We use them so flippantly and so loosely.

Female: When – one thing – what’s one thing you want people should take away from your book? People that come in today and get it or just want to get it?

Jonar Nader: Well, if you – if you force me to give you one thing, I’d say this, that if someone stole you a lovely gold watch or your car, you’d do something about it. You will do something about it. When someone steals your time they are stealing your life, what are you doing about it?

Female: Yes.

Jonar Nader: That’s what I leave them with.

Female: Right. Well, thank you very much, Jonar. Now, you’re off – after this you’re off back home to Australia and then the USA?

Jonar Nader: Then the good old USA.

Female: To promote it.

Jonar Nader: Six city tour, New York and all the way back west to LA.

Female: Oh, fantastic.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: Thank you very much. You certainly – one of your mottos is, give me a microphone and you’ll give us an opinion.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: You certainly done that today.

Jonar Nader: I like my microphone. Yes.

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Female: What sort of – it’s been eight years writing a book, what motivated you to write this book because you’ve done a lot of other things, and we’ll approach sort of later on in the interview.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: I mean, why did you write this book?

Jonar Nader: Well, I lecture a lot and I give a lot of public speeches. And in so doing, I could reach five hundred to a thousand people at the time and that was really pretty small going. When I found so many people wanted more and I felt that the book was an opportunity to actually get to more people in a – in economical way time wise. But I started to write the book because I actually felt that so many people wanted more information when I sparked this interest. But it was born out of frustration. It was born out of anger.

When I finally saw the truth of how manipulative corporate life is, how stupid Wall Street is, how we all waste our time, and when I saw the bullies in the backseat of the bus sitting in the boardroom now, dressed in their lovely suits and they are now bullies dressed in fancy suits and I thought, what has changed? Everything is different but nothing has changed. The weakest element still wins. The most corrupt still gets to the top. The biggest crawlers still manage to, you know, manipulate everything else. And I thought nothing has changed. I left school at 14 because I couldn’t stand it there and here I am in corporate life, now I’ve got bullies and I have to be diplomatic. At least in school you could punch somebody and say, ‘Get out of the way.’

Female:

Jonar Nader: Now, you have to write a memo and go through the protocol you know. Protocol. And the thing that motivates me was that I realized all the wisdom of life that is hype is useless. They talked about patience is a virtue. Horrible. You know, only half true because impatience is pretty good too. If someone is wasting your life and abusing you, the quicker you become impatient, the better it is for everyone concerned, you know. Tolerance is a virtue. No, because we tolerate stupidity in the work environment, corporate cancer, liars, backstabbers, and they go, ‘Oh well, you know, he’s the boss’ pet or he’ll soon get promoted.’ No one get sacked anymore, they just get promoted. When they get promoted, you clapped meaning goodbye and good riddance and they go up higher in the tree and make everyone else miserable.

So, all these things, they just keep coming. Also, I realized that we need to understand opposites. We know about focus and people say be focused. But you also have to be aware but focus and awareness are opposites but you have to do them simultaneously. We’re often taught to do things in chunks, in punctuated movement. But you have to simultaneously be focused while aware. You have to be logical. And some of us are creative. You have to do both simultaneously and attain a new level of thinking, you know.

And so, in this world there’ll be intangibles and tangibles. You need to understand the opposites. I have therefore found that – in my search, I found things that other are yearning for. So, I put it in a book and it’s going really well and it’s just scary. I get fan mail everyday. Today, just here at Whitcoulls, a lady said, ‘Are you Jonar?’ And she looked at me. Of course, I wouldn’t know her face. She wouldn’t have known mine but we’ve been corresponding through email. She had a tear in her eye. She had a lump in her throat because she said thanks for your kindness because I sent her a few words of encouragement and gave her a bit of strength.

Female: That sort of made me feel good.

Jonar Nader: She resigned her job. Yes, and she’d resigned her job. She worked for a huge corporation. She was telling me of the manipulation. She said, ‘What do I do?’ And – and you know, she did it. I didn’t do anything. But I was a stranger out of the – out of the six billion people in the world, this lady here in Wellington happened to send an email to this kid in Sydney and now, we just met by accident and …

Female: She rolls up to Lambton Quay Whitcoulls.

Jonar Nader: Yes. She didn’t know I was going to be here and that’s the power of the author. And I think that authors, the word author means authority. And I don’t like it when authors write books that are just anecdotes.

Female: Yes. You mentioned that in your book and the three guys.

Jonar Nader: Yes. All that are just be kept brochures. All they do is they promote the corporations they’ve worked for, their clients, they’re going about how wonderful this corporation is or that corporation is. Yes, fine. That’s a story. But go to the best magazines in the world and pull out the best of anecdotes and give you – and you read the bibliographies at the back of books and you’ll know what you’re reading. You’re reading Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Harvard Business Review, and ten other books.

Female: But what makes this book differently?

Jonar Nader: One is that I don’t have an axe to grind. I don’t have a client to promote. In fact, not a single company is mentioned in my book, not a single person is mentioned in my book. So, it’s got nothing to do with – with someone else and the, you know, trying to promote someone else. The second thing is that it actually doesn’t give you the solutions but it helps you to ask the right questions and until you learn to do that, you can’t arrive at the right answers.

The other thing that’s different about it is it actually is well-researched, eight years, and not once did anyone know that I was writing a book. I think …

Female: Yes, I find that quite interesting.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: You sort of plugging away in the back of the mind this whole time.

Jonar Nader: Yes. Well, the worst thing you can do is ring up a CEO and say, ‘Hey Bob, you know, I’m writing a book on leadership. Can I come and see you?’ He’ll put his best suit on and he’ll make sure, you know, he gives you the nice coffee.

Female: Sure thing, Jonar.

Jonar Nader: Yes. And then they’ll start talking about things like we here believe in teamwork. Rhetoric, Rhetoric. I actually have gone through these ages ago. When I used to work for a huge corporation and I’d opened up a magazine and I would read an article with a journalist with my CEO and the CEO was saying things that were rubbish. And I was like, ‘You liar. You just lied to the journalist. That’s not how you do it. You’re an intimidating bastard. You make people …’ I developed a twitch from my manager once. You know, it took me a year to get rid of a twitch because that’s the intimidation that they’ve spread.

You know, if I were a woman, I would have said, ‘Oh, you know, it’s because I’m a woman.’ I mean because I was young, I’d say it’s because I was young. But these people actually don’t just discriminate against women, don’t discriminate the girls back to blacks or Jews or ages, they just cold stop discriminators. And who’s going to stand up to them? Do you dare stand up to them? No, most people don’t. It just takes a few like me who put their neck on the line and when you look at the futurists of life, the Copernicus, the Galileo, the Pythagoras, these people were jailed, they’re stopped, and apprehended and they were called you’re out of line, buddy. And it’s so easy.

And someone said to me the other day, ‘How are you going to change the world?’ But you know what? I used to think changing the world meant changing everybody? I now realized, all I have to do to change the world is to change the minority because it is the minority that makes things happen. It is the few who actually lead the way.

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Female: Now, you’ve got your book here. You’re quite sort of controversial but How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. Interesting title but we’ll get more on the title a little bit later on. First of all, who is this book targeted to?

Jonar Nader: Well initially, it was targeted to people who are let’s say, around 21 to 40 who have gone through the mill of obtaining supposed credentials, who have done everything that societies tell them to do and then they say, ‘Hang on. I haven’t really lived. I don’t – I haven’t reclaimed my life. I’m not happy. I’m supposedly a manager.’ And so, it’s targeting those people who really want to take that next step to reclaim their life. But strangely enough, the fan-mail I get daily are from people for who were like 90 who are ex-army generals or ex-CEOs saying, ‘I wish I had this book when I was growing up.’

Female: Really?

Jonar Nader: And a 14-year-old girl wrote most fantastic things that she read it and it was just so important to her and she’s forcing her parents to read it. So now therefore, I realized my audience is, you know, 14-year-olds to 90-year-old, people who are both in corporate life and government and so on. It wasn’t actually written with a target in mind. You know, I didn’t say I would go after this demographic. It was written with the kind of person in mind, the people who are sick and tired of the lies and the stupidity and the hype that keeps going around time after time after time. And it actually offers some really sound wisdom and it also provides some clear advice. However, it really doesn’t give you any solutions because the book engages the reader to come up with the right solution. So, that’s why some people read the book and say, ‘Gosh, I’m exhausted.’ You know, because it really does make you think and that’s why I say, ‘Don’t read more than one chapter at a time.’

Female: Because one thing that strikes me when I was reading is you read the page and you’ll say, ‘Yes. I’ve noticed that my whole life but it’s now sort of clear to me as to what’s just happening.’

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Female: And you’ve got it on the front here. You got to read it – read it twice and read between the lines. Well, what does this sort of mean?

Jonar Nader: Okay. You know like there’s a – there’s some books out there that you can read them every year and every year, you benefit from them. Even like some comedy. You know, there’s some like I love British comedy and I can watch certain British comedy that has been out since 1930, 1950 and every time I watch the tape, I laughs at the brand new joke I’ve never seen before because it is rich and full. This book is rich and full with wisdom but it actually is useless until you combine it with our wisdom. But as you grow up year and year, you’re combining it with new wisdom. So, the book is like this magnet and you bring your wisdom to it. And that’s why I say, if you read between the lines, meaning, interrogate yourself, ask yourself, really look at things, don’t just read words, you’ll see more and more and more because it’s engaging. Yes.

Female: And so, there’s really nice way to sort of think about it that way. That it’s sort of partly your own book as well. That’s what you’re bringing. You’ve sort of started the catalyst for your own – the reader’s thoughts.

Jonar Nader: It asks the right questions. You see, I have this philosophy that says, if you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer. And if you don’t understand the question, you won’t understand the answer. And so, I hopefully ask the right questions. I have – I used to teach a lot and the first year of teaching, at the end of it, my students said, ‘I’m not sure what we learned, sir.’

Female: .

Jonar Nader: And I felt somewhat offended because I thought, why is it – you know, I put so much work into this and you’re telling me you’re not sure what you learned. But I – so the next year, what I did is the very first day of the semester, I gave them last year’s test and most of them got 20%. At the end of the year, they got the full on exam and they got 80%. So, I could see that they had learned something but my teaching style is so that actually people end up earning the knowledge. I don’t say one plus one is two. I say, what do we mean one? Why are we combining them and so on? And so, we go through the process of trying to understand what we are dealing with and you will arrive at two. I won’t tell you it’s two. And then you will think you earn the knowledge. And at the end of it, you’ll say, ‘Well we’ve known this. What are you telling me?’ And that’s the greatest thrill really for a lecturer or a teacher.

Female: And I – you know, it makes a lot of sense.

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Male Speaker: From the studios of channel 9, entertainment center of the galaxy and a relay around the globe through Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin and New Guinea welcome yet another two hours of zany mad-capped stick on Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday with Daggs and the dregs. And now, folks, let’s hear it for the host, Daryl Somers.

Daryl Somers: You always get a headache and you’re just doing the start of a show. Had a letter.

Ossie Ostrich: Had a letter?

Daryl Somers: Had a letter from a guy who watched us many years ago and he wrote to us. He said, ‘You may recall that 13 years ago, I wrote to your “What cheeses me off segment”.’

Ossie Ostrich:

Daryl Somers: What a great start to a letter!

Ossie Ostrich: Yes.

Daryl Somers: Isn’t that a great start to a letter.

Ossie Ostrich: He’s still waiting for an answer, isn’t he?

Daryl Somers: Yes, the thing is I do recall.

Ossie Ostrich: Yes?

Daryl Somers: Yes. He wrote in to complain about how difficult it was for kids to understand what news readers were saying due to their overuse of difficult long words.

Ossie Ostrich: Oh, yes.

Daryl Somers: Now, you and your team acted out a special skit to exaggerate this problem. Interestingly, Prentice Hall, the Paramount thing – communications company have just launched my book called Prentice Hall’s Illustrated Dictionary of Computing. Now, that’s the computer book this guy has put out.

<0:01:36>

Daryl Somers: But …

Ossie Ostrich: It will be exciting, real funny.

Daryl Somers: Yes.

Ossie Ostrich: It’s a must to everybody’s library.

Daryl Somers: Yes. And the thing he wants to come on the show and be on red faces as a judge.

Ossie Ostrich: Right.

Daryl Somers: And – because it says, you know – what does it say? Now, the thing that cheeses me off is the fact that Hey Hey It’s Saturday mainly caters for viewers who are mad about entertainment. Well, what about technology? I would like to appear on your show and re-live that skit and show you how difficult it must be for people of my generation who didn’t grow up with computers to understand computer terminology.

Ossie Ostrich: What’s his name again?

Daryl Somers: As much as I – his name is Jonar C. Nader.

Ossie Ostrich: Oh, Jonar, stiff.

Daryl Somers: Basically, yes.

Ossie Ostrich: Yes.

Daryl Somers: But, didn’t you get a lot of national exposure after your book then …

Ossie Ostrich: Yes.

Daryl Somers: … Jonar.

Ossie Ostrich: Yes, yes.

Daryl Somers: There you go. How are you, Redmond, are you coping with the season?

Male Speaker 2: No.

Male Speaker 2: Not at all.

Daryl Somers: What? You not?

Male Speaker 2: I was trying to do a ‘Hey, Daryl’ before we got that book. I was just going to say that yes, hold it up, thank you. We’ve already got Deane Hutton on the show. Why do we need two dweebs?

Daryl Somers: Now, come on. He’s probably backstage there though. Which would be a shame because he’s not on until next week …

Male Speaker 2: And that’s where he should stay.

Daryl Somers: But he’s probably back …

Male Speaker 3: I think it’s fantastic. It’s sort of like an episode of Beyond Grecian 2000.

Daryl Somers: Hello, the boys are going out.

Male Speaker 3: Sorry, no. That’s all we’ve got. That’s about it. That’s as funny as we get, Daryl.

Male Speaker 2: It’s an equity thing, Daryl.

Daryl Somers: Okay. Off they go. The boys are leaving. Okay, we’ve given Jonar C. Nader a big plug, Mike Brady a big plug. Legacy have got theirs already, That man there is Paul Norton. He has a band and a very beautiful wife Wendy Stapleton up there. And there ‘When We Were Young’ as the number, go for it, Paul!

Here is the transcript:

Female Speaker: The social observer, philosopher, author and lecturer, Jonar Nader has spent years studying people and their habits and he knows some tricks to surviving in the corporate jungle and he joins us now.

Jonar Nader: So I used to get up from a meeting and say, ‘Excuse me. I have an appointment with life. I am going, not putting up with this nonsense.’

Female Speaker: What? Are you nuts?

Jonar Nader: I almost got caught.

Jonar Nader: Because in the future, I can tell you, money will be linked to performance.

And what next? What will be the next big thing?

The idea about being a futurist is not that you’re this clairvoyant. My friend’s father was a clairvoyant and his mother was a contortionist and as a result, he could foresee his own end.

Jonar Nader: My father said to my mother, ‘You know, we have been married 36 years. And not once have we agreed on anything.’ She said, ‘Thirty-seven.’

Female Speaker: His new book Z is a fictional novel about the worst act of terrorism the world could ever see.

Jonar Nader: Even if I were the president of the world for 10 years, I still could not think of a way to generate peace. I finally did.

Half of the world is in conflict. Half of the world is at war. And I see it as a war on our destiny rather than a war on terror.

You must be forbidden from working anywhere, touching anything if you don’t know what it feels like, what it tastes like. You know, what’s on the menu? Chicken. What does it taste like? I don’t know. I just work here. Well, find me someone who doesn’t work here so I can find out.

Jonar Nader: In the future, companies who put us on hold will have to pay for our time.

And I think there should be two types of managers, the manager that says, ‘Any problem you have, come to me. I’ll fix it,’ or the manager who says, ‘Look, any problem you see, go fix it and I’ll back you up.’

Terminal.

Jonar Nader: They say the bottom line is the most important thing in companies. And I say no, no, no. Then they say, oh, hang on. You know, the triple bottom line is the most important thing. Oh, yes? What’s that? I say, the triple bottom line is you have to take care of profits, you have to take care of the environment and you have to take care of society. That’s called the triple bottom line. It’s being taught all over the MBAs at the moment. I say, that’s still useless. Talk to me about the triple top line. It’s your staff, your quality and your customers.

Teamwork is a lot of nonsense because it doesn’t work. What I want are teams that work.

See, I don’t think you can share energy or you can share power because the most you do, you’ll dissipate it. So, in essence, the function of power for me is to generate momentum. There is this notion of the perceived power. For example, people think that the queen is powerful or that a minister is powerful. What people do not realize is that in fact, it is the department that runs the minister, not the minister that runs the department.

Do you know how we say power corrupts? You know this notion. I don’t believe that power corrupts either. I think certainly corruption is powerful and that’s why people seem to steer away from power but in itself, it is better to have power than not.

Male Speaker: Jonar, you get the last word.

Female Speaker: Stick around, would you?

Jonar Nader: Yes, sure.

Female Speaker: Thank you.

Female Speaker: Jonar Nader is a digital age philosopher. For the past 22 years, he has maintained a dual career as an expert in both technology and management and presents to both kinds of audiences.

Jonar Nader: Are you actually delivering on your promise?

Female Speaker: For example, he was the opening speaker for the IT Summit and the CEO Summit. Sometimes, Jonar wears two hats at the same conference as he did for the Institute of Company Directors where he gave two keynotes, one about leadership and another about technology and the future.

Jonar Nader: So, is it good to always have a bit of dirt in the bottom drawer? On someone.

Male Speaker: How does it come down for you, Jonar Nader?

Jonar Nader: Well, I’m glad you’ve asked me this question now that I’m a consultant…

Jonar Nader: Because I’m making a lot more money now.

Jonar Nader: Whenever I see a bad employee, my first impression is, ‘Who is his boss?’ And so, I would like to know why that happened and spend my energy there because …

Male Speaker: Well, you were his boss…

Female Speaker: Whether he’s humorous or controversial, Jonar delivers tantalizing messages.

Male Speaker: The irrepressible Mr Jonar Nader.

Female Speaker: He’s known for his captivating after dinner speeches like the one he presented at the Australian Business Awards.

Jonar Nader: So, what’s going to be the most important thing for your business is your brand. And when I say brand, I don’t mean just only your logo or your brand awareness of brand image or brand building or brand recall or brand values. As important as they are, the single biggest important thing about brand is the brand bet. That means what the customer is prepared to bet on.

The issue is I know that we all know how to make a cake and we all have flour and we all have sugar and we all have eggs and we all have an oven and we probably have the ingredients sitting right now at home. But how many of us can actually make it? The process of knowing is not good enough.

Female Speaker: Around the world, tens of thousands of people have attended Jonar’s presentations. He’s popular with professionals in finance, law, science, technology, manufacturing and sales.

Jonar Nader: I don’t want to hear any more terms and conditions and conditions apply…

Most people don’t learn a new word after the age of 18. Their vocabulary stays the same thereafter. Most people don’t have a new dream beyond, you know, whatever they’ve been – now, that’s it, mate. You’re going to be a plumber the rest of your life.

I say to kids, don’t worry about what you are going to be when you grow up. How you’re going to live as you are living.

Female Speaker: Jonar Nader is the author of the best-selling book How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. He has also written a book of modern wisdom called How to Lost Friends and Infuriate Thinkers.

Jonar Nader: If you stand up and rise and say, ‘Look boss, you know, I really don’t think this is the way we should be doing it,’ then others will get – gain energy from you because it usually just takes the minority to create something big.

Female Speaker: What’s your view on anger and what it does to us, our bodies and its purpose?

Jonar Nader: If anger happens, you stop and say, ‘This is great. The alarm bells have gone off. Now is the time to assess why.’ Not go down the pub and, you know, laugh it off but to say, ‘What triggered this? Because this is not the trigger that I will allow into my life.’

Customer service isn’t just about being nice to people. It’s about product knowledge, knowing your industry inside out, knowing everything about everything you can possibly know. If you don’t get out of the way because selling is as much a profession as nuclear physics.

Are you actually delivering on your promise? And if we do that, the rest will take care of itself.

Any executive who has a ticker tape of their stock price or to be sacked on the spot. Your job is not to check the stock price. It’s a check about Mrs. Smith the last time she paid you good money to buy her husband a nice something rather that just doesn’t work and when she calls to complain, you say, ‘Oh, wow. Well, 20 minutes on hold. Your call is important to us. And please bring it down. It might take two weeks to repair it. Theft!

Today on Wall Street, people are just running around for bottom line figures. And what are they doing? They’re really only cheating themselves because Wall Street is a joke and the sooner it blows up, the better.

So many corporations are failing today because there is a them and us attitude. We might think we’re making profits but they’re all manipulated. The real profit comes when people are actually satisfied, happy.

For me, success is not what you amass. It’s what you …

And if you hate your boss, do not treat your boss badly. If you don’t like what you are doing, all the more reason to do it better so that you can climb out.

You know, and who gets promoted in corporate life today? The backstabbers who know how to do it well enough.

Male Speaker:

Jonar Nader: You know, the creative people. Where do they end up?

If I put this on my head, people will go, ‘What’s this guy on television got this on his head for?’ Because the visible things, everyone is an expert at. They can see that’s wrong. But can they see that someone is a back stabber, a manipulator, a hound, a con artist? Can they? I don’t think executives and people in an office environment can see it.

Female Speaker: Jonar is also the author of the best-selling illustrated Dictionary of Computing and the technology writer for Butterworth’s Legal Dictionary and the Student’s Legal Dictionary. He also serves as an expert witness to the legal profession.

Jonar Nader: Unfortunately, the internet will have to collapse before it rebuilds itself.

Male Speaker: It will be exciting, real funny up here.

Male Speaker: That’s a must for everybody.

Male Speaker: Jonar C. Nader.

Male Speaker: Jonar: Stiff!

Female Speaker: Jonar’s last assignment as a corporate executive was at IBM where he led the consumer division in 18 countries. He’s the co-founder of both the Information Technology Society and The Leadership Foundation funded by McKinsey and Company and Qantas. Programs have been held at the Royal Military College and at the University of New South Wales. As a guest lecturer at tertiary institutions, he conducts his courses on technology, leadership, management, advertising, marketing and politics.

Jonar is a coach to high profile executives. He gives thousands of radio and TV interviews worldwide. His articles are published in some of the most respected business and IT publications. As a magazine editor and writer, he has worked for motor racing, art and fashion magazines and has held exclusive interviews with the likes of Stuart Devlin, jeweler to Her Majesty the Queen.

Jonar has interviewed the biggest names in art and design including Count Faber Castell and fashion gurus such as Jean Muir, designer to the late Princess Diana. He has interviewed many fashion giants including Count Zegna, Lagerfeld, Missoni, Kenzo and the late Gianni Versace.

Female Speaker: As the chairman of Logictivity, Jonar Nader guides CEOs and boards to engineer a successful future. To learn more, please visit Logictivity.com and find out how the world’s only post-tentative, virtual surrealist can rearrange your molecules.